King of strings
The late Noel Redding, bass player for The Jimi Hendrix Experience, could have told you about his talent; so could James Taylor. That's because both musicians played his instruments. "He" is master guitar-maker George Rizsanyi, and he creates his handcrafted custom-made guitars (www.rizsanyiguitars.com) in his windowless studio: an old barn in Pinehurst, located on Nova Scotia's South Shore.
"There's an Old World sense of pride here that most everyone who does a craft does it to the best of their ability," he says on the phone from his workshop. "Quality before quantity."
Quality before quantity: Luthier George Rizsanyi with one of his handcrafted guitars.
Rizsanyi is a "luthier," and at 52, he is a master. It was a chance meeting with a transient guitar-maker in the mid-1970s that inspired the Hungarian–born, Ontario–bred factory worker to take up the craft, but his family was always musical. "I first had a guitar in my hands when I was five," he says.
In 1976 Rizsanyi apprenticed with Croatian–born guitar-maker Joe Kovacic, known as Joey Lado, near Oxbridge, Ont.; worked with violin-maker Bruce West near Bradford, Ont.; and was an employee at a Toronto musical-restoration house called The Twelfth Fret, before he struck out on his own. "I was quite good at restoration. Still am. Most people don't trust just anybody with their really good instruments."
It was Rizsanyi's humble beginnings in repair work that taught him how to make a world-class guitar, a skill he also teaches. Among his varied accomplishments is the Six String Nation Guitar, a custom-made instrument constructed out of historically significant pieces of Canadian wood, metal, and bone. It was assembled over a decade and includes decking from the Bluenose II, Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddles, and Paul Henderson's hockey stick. The guitar, played for the first time on Canada Day 2006, is meant to be a symbol of national unity, and it isn't the last one of its kind he'll bring into the world.
"I plan on building another at some point," says Rizsanyi. "This next guitar I'd like to hand to a musician I know [and tell him to] play it when he's ready and pass it to somebody else. I'd love to see this guitar travel across the country. It's a big form of communication that the guitar and music affords us. I've had people who don't speak a word of English working in my shop. We don't need it to get our point across; we do it through music, through guitars."
— Carsten Knox
